Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Pardo.
Hi Alex, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Since a young age, I struggled to gain weight and was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. In other words, I was lacking IGF-1 in my body which is naturally needed in the body for proper growth. The doctors had always said that I wasn’t going to grow past the 4-foot range, which to me meant I was going to stay small forever. With that being said, I had to get shots twice a day, once in the morning and once before bed. Over a couple of years of taking this medicine, it slowly helped me grow but it was nothing significant; so my parents decided it was best for me to stop taking the medicine and just hope that I would naturally grow to a regular size person. Throughout this time, I was always playing baseball. My father Alberto Pardo inspired me to play baseball with his background playing Major League Baseball. He has taught me everything I know and has helped form me into the man I am today. No matter how small I was, my father always emphasized mental toughness and would help me break past limiting beliefs when it came to baseball. He’s an advocate for hard work and would always say “in order to be the best, you got to do more than the rest.” That has stuck with me my entire life and always will. I’m proud to say that I proved those doctors wrong and proudly stand at 5 foot 7 inches.
In August of 2018, I made my choice to begin working out in the gym. It was a huge commitment to make, but my good friend Bobby Harrigan was the one to get me signed up at his gym. I was tired of looking skinny and small, I always wanted to transform my body but never could really do it because of my growth deficiency. However, this time it was all pieced together when I began working out. I committed to working out 5-6 days every week and very quickly packed on some serious mass. A big thanks to my family’s genetics for helping me build a good physique. Everything started changing really quickly in all aspects of my life. I was feeling better, my self-confidence was up, and lots of people from my high school were acknowledging my progress and wanted help in the gym. From this point, I decided to change my Instagram page into a fitness page; uploading daily workout videos to help inspire others. Once I graduated high school, I continued to create content while working a couple of jobs to help pay for my expenses and invest in myself. I invested in my first mentor Zakk Colburn in the fall of 2020. He taught me exactly how to run an online fitness coaching business from the ground up and gave me the structure I needed to work on my own time. I quickly gained my first ten clients online and absolutely fell in love with the process.
However, during this time an opportunity came my way to move to Auburn, AL for a student firefighter program that would pay for most of my college tuition. At first, I wanted no part in this opportunity, I didn’t want to leave my loved ones behind and be secluded in a whole other state. My family was insistent that I take on this opportunity since it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I thought long and hard on it for a while and eventually came to the decision to apply. I made a few trips back and forth to Auburn for an orientation and interviews. Luckily I was accepted into the program and moved to Auburn, AL January 16th. During this time I was lucky enough to live at Auburn Fire Station 2 in one of the extra dormitories. The recruitment program was 17 weeks long with the first seven weeks containing EMT training & the last ten weeks entailing Firefighter training. Early mornings waking up at 4 AM and preparing myself for PT to start at the intramural fields at 5:15. This was by far the biggest challenge I’ve come to face in my life. It was 17 weeks of hell for me, being drained physically & mentally.
I remember surviving through the first week of training and my body was in shambles. My family came to see me and rented a hotel so that I could soak my body and try to recover for the next week to come since the fire stations don’t have bathtubs. During that first week a few people had already quit. I was truly battling myself mentally with the thought of quitting and just going back home where life was more comfortable. However, I continued to just take it one day at a time and asked God for strength when I was in the most difficult situations. He never failed me and I was able to survive through the 17 weeks of hell, obtaining my EMT & Firefighter certifications. After graduating recruit school May 15th of 2021, I began my first official shift working at the fire station on May 17th of 2021. Since then, I’ve continued my college education, have continued running my online fitness business helping hundreds of people transform their bodies, and I’ve grown my social media page past 10,000 followers and have reached over 1 million people within 1 month of posting content. I’m only 21 years old, and this is just the beginning; there are many more chapters to come in my life.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
By no means has it been a smooth road, there have always been times of adversity. Every single one of us on this planet has struggles. One of my biggest challenges to overcome was my growth deficiency, always being the small guy whether it was being made fun of at school or playing at a baseball game and coaches told their outfielders to play more shallowly purely based on my height. Additionally, it was a huge struggle moving away from family and pushing through 17 weeks of hell. Every single day was a struggle just staying in survival mode trying to make it through our 5 am physical training sessions. I knew that if I could make it through those sessions, I could make it through class time for the remainder of the day. When you place yourself in an uncomfortable environment, you start to grow. Going through those 17 weeks of training helped mold me into the man I am today. This completely changed my mindset when facing adversity, anytime I hit a wall in my life. It’s always about taking the right action to jump over it. Whenever I was going through vigorous fire training and had myself in dangerous situations, it was very stressful. I remember a time going through confined space training and getting entangled in a zero visibility environment. At that moment I had to focus on keeping my composure and breathing slowly to work myself out of that situation. Freaking out wouldn’t have done me any good. It’s the most difficult moments in our life that truly mold us into our best versions. This applies to anyone who’s facing adversity in their life, just remember that there is a new and improved you on the other side of that wall.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My businesses are Prove Them Wrong Fitness & Alex Pardo Marketing. These are two completely different businesses.
Prove Them Wrong Fitness is my online fitness coaching program where I help busy individuals build their dream bodies without sacrificing all their time. My clients receive a program accustomed to fit into their current routine and should make their life easier even with their busy schedules. Since I started this business, I’ve been able to help hundreds of people take their fitness journey to the next level. The program itself is broken down into four simple pillars: Nutrition, Training, Accountability, and Education. You see, you can have a few pieces, but without all 4, it’s difficult to experience a full successful transformation. Throughout this program, I guide my clients every day to help them overcome any challenges and guarantee they have a full body transformation. If you’re looking to build the body of your dreams but don’t want to sacrifice all of your time then Prove Them Wrong Fitness is the place to go.
Alex Pardo Marketing is a new business I recently started utilizing the skills I implemented to organically reach 2 million people within three months. I was able to do this by creating short-form engaging content on social media. My mission here is to help business owners reach thousands of potential clients organically by leveraging the power of social media. I’m currently helping a few small business owners with content creation, I help them come up with a strategy to 10x their organic reach and from there all they have to do is record the simple short-form videos and I take care of the professional editing, and social media boosting. The short-form videos range from 15 seconds up to 60 seconds max. The best part is that all of this can be done just by using a smartphone to record the videos. If you want to reach thousands of potential clients organically by leveraging the power of social media, then Alex Pardo Marketing is the place for you!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tr.ee/N4bZUNJVi8
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexpardofit/
